The Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy to Watch This Week
The second week of July brings a big release to movie theatres, as this month continues to be one of the hottest this year for high-profile releases, but this is one of the most important, as it could decide the fate of a fledgling cinematic universe.
Superman
In theaters July 11
Look up! James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ is arriving in theaters July 11. This is a hugely important movie, as it’s the start of the new rebooted DCU, and is set to launch an entire cinematic universe, so there’s plenty of pressure on for it to deliver.
Coming from James Gunn, the man behind the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ trilogy and ‘The Suicide Squad’, it’s one of the most anticipated movies of the year, with a massive marketing campaign stretching back months. Will it live up to the hype? The trailers point to it being a much lighter, more optimistic tone than Zack Snyder’s ‘Man of Steel’, and it’s likely Gunn’s signature style of comedy will be front and center.
Based on one of DC’s most popular characters, this movie has the potential to be the popular hit of the summer.
The Institute
Premiering on MGM+ July 13
An adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, the story follows a twelve-year-old boy who’s kidnapped in the night and taken to The Institute, a place filled with kids like him, who each have special powers including telepathy and telekinesis.
The show bears some similarities to Netflix hit ‘Stranger Things’, which also features a shady institution where kids with special abilities are held and experimented on, except that coming from the mind of Stephen King, it’s definitely going to be much darker and more brutal than Netflix’s nostalgia hit.
Back to the Future
Available to watch on Hulu
Time travel is a tricky device to deal with in movies, where it can easily become a trope, but ‘Back to the Future’ was one of the first to use it in a unique way, using it to create comedy rather than as a solid scientific plot device.
This year, the film is turning forty, which means there’s now more time between this movie’s release and the present day, than between the 1950s and 1980s when Marty went back in time, that’s a scary thought. But this is still one of the best movies from the decade that hasn’t aged a day.
